Mountain Lion distance runners Leki Albright and Dexter Delaney each stood on the awards podium twice, and high jumper Isaiah Stoothoff made it once at the WIAA-Gesa State 2B Track and Field Championships this past weekend.
Liberty Bell sent seven athletes to compete in the final meet of 2022 at Eastern Washington University featuring schools in the 1B, 2B and 1A school classifications, each class competing independently.
Sophomore Albright and freshman Delaney each ran and performed well in the 1,600 and 3,200 meter runs. Stoothoff’s sole event was the high jump. Sophomores Kyler Mitchell, Sandra Hernandez, Fischer Edwards and Aksel Thomson also qualified and competed at state, each performing well but falling short of making the top eight in the final results.
Mitchell opened the meet for the Liberty Bell crew with his run in the preliminary heats of the boys’ 300M hurdles for boys late Thursday afternoon, having an off day at 46.95 seconds for the run and not qualifying for the finals.
Albright and Delaney ran their first events late Thursday, Albright finishing 4th and Delaney 3rd in the 1,600M run. Both set new personal best marks for the metric mile. Delaney, at 4:31.51, was just 2.5 seconds out of 1st place in an extremely competitive race that found the top six crossing the finish line with less than 9 seconds of total separation. Chewelah’s Zeke Crockett edged Alden Williams of Goldendale by .2 second for the title. Tonasket senior Carter Timm placed 6th.
Albright’s 5:25.80 was 12 seconds behind champion Josie McLaughlin of St. George’s. Pre-race favorite, senior Chloe Overberg of Asotin, was 2nd, 4 seconds behind the Dragon freshman.
The Mountain Lion pair would show well again on Saturday in the 3,200M, where Albright chased Overberg for all eight laps, earning a comfortable 2nd place in 11:48.37, about 20 seconds behind the champion. Regan Thomas of St. George’s was 3rd, 55 seconds behind Albright at the finish line.
Delaney would garner another 3rd-place finish in the 3,200M final, posting a very respectable 9:58.68. It would have taken a new Liberty Bell school record by Delaney to have beaten Northwest Christian junior Asher Ingram, who set a personal record of 9:50.37 in winning the championship.
Chewelah’s Cole Foster was about 2.5 seconds behind as the runner up. Jaeger Jacobsen of Davenport was 4th, a good half-minute behind the Mountain Lion freshman. Liberty Bell Sophomore Aksel Thomson got his first taste of state track and field action in that 3,200M race, placing 9th at 10:51.12.
Sandra Hernandez’ run in the 400M run lasted only for the preliminary heat where she had the 11th-place time of 1:07.11, missing, not by much, the finals qualifying mark of 1:05.72 by 8th-place qualifier Sarah Hamilton of Okanogan.
Liberty Bell sent only two athletes into the field event portion of the state meet. Junior Isaiah Stoothoff cleared the high jump bar at 5 feet, 8 inches, good for an 8th-place tie, and sophomore Fischer Edwards placed 9th in the javelin with a throw of 136 feet, 5 inches, about 7 inches off of his personal best mark set earlier this year.
Alvarez-Murua nets win at state meet
Liberty Bell’s Spanish exchange student Haizea Alvarez-Murua went 1-2 at the WIAA-Gesa State Tennis Championships in Yakima over the weekend.
Alvarez-Murua lost her first-round match on Friday morning to Avi Sahota of Chewelah’s Jenkins High School, 6-2, 6-2, and bounced back in the afternoon to defeat Jimena Gutierrez of White Swan in a thrilling 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, three-set victory.
On Friday morning, the Mountain Lion took on highly rated Mia Tombari of St. George’s and battled hard, dropping the first set in a 7-5, extra set loss. Her tournament was done, but, in the end it looks like a pretty good performance for the Liberty Bell junior. Her two opponents, Tombari and Sahota, did fairly well. Tombari defeated Tonasket’s Skyler Hardesty in the match for 3rd place, and Sahota took home the 2nd-place trophy after losing the championship match to Lucia Martinez-Leal of Highland by a 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 match score.
